************»**»*******tALL pQjj 78QS20 PISOUTH KICROPUBLISHIM2627 E Yaadell DrEl Paso TX T9903 3721®f]t Hopkins Count? CcfjoAbsorbed The Gazette Circulation By Purchase On May 12, 1928VOL 206 — NO. 1SULPHUR SPRINGS, TEXAS — FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 20014 PAGES — 25 CENTS — PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAYCity awardsbid on newapron forlocal airportBy BRUCE ALSOBROOKPolice and victims baffled by shootingSingle shotgun blast injures couple Tuesday night Rewards being offered““~U//»tnAivtnil mornillil llll,l/ll<> ( ln>> r»l ‘ I I i » I fill till* V I l 'By BRUCE ALSOBROOKA Sulphur Springs construc-tion company won the bid toconstruct a new apron for thecity’s airport.Sulphur Springs City Councilmembers voted Tuesday toaward A.K. Gillis Constructionthe $298,000 contract to con-struct the new apron at the air-port, where a new terminal isalso being built.An alternate plan that wouldextend the apron by 30 feet wasalso approved after TexasDepartment of Transportationofficials approved $40,000 tofund the additional construction,according to City Finance Direc-tor Peter Karstens.Council members also voted tochange the zoning classificationfor truck stops and travel centersfrom heavy commercial zones tolight industrial zones.Director of Community Devel-opment Johnny Vance saidresearch into the original zoningdesignation indicated there wassome disagreement as to whetherthe facilities should be located inlight commercial or light indus-trial zones.“Heavy commercial wasapparently a compromise,”Vance said.A review of properties alsofound the most likely sites fortruck stops and travel centerswould be in light industrialzones.Councilman Larry Willmannapplauded the change, noting thattravel centers have “quite a fewnuisances attached to them,”such as fuel and noise, and truckstops have evolved to include awide range of sizes and services.“This is probably a good cor-rection,” Willmann said.In other action, council mem-bers approved a bid from anEmory company to bore underInterstate 30 for a new sewerpipe. Sisk Utilities submitted thelow bid of $47,100 for the work,which was less than half the$98,000 bid of a Fort Worthcompany.Police have no clue as to why a 61 -year-old Sulphur Springs man wasshot at his Mitchell Street home Tues-day night.Nor do they know who shot him.L.G. Hankins sustained severe handinjuries after an assailant fired a sin-gle shotgun blast when Hankinganswered a knock at his door. He wasreportedly in good condition Wednes-day morning at Hopkins CountyMemorial Hospital.Sulphur Springs Police Del. Nor-man C’olyer, who is investigating thecase, said there is no apparent motivefor the attack.“Right now. I really don't knowwhat’s going on." Colyer saidWednesday morning.Hartkins and his wife Edith AliceHankins. 57. were at their home inthe KM) block of Mitchell Street about8:20 p.m. when they heard a knock atthe front door. 'Colyer said Mr. Hankins openedthe door and saw the suspect,described as a tall, slender black malein his 20s. standing in front of him."All of a sudden, he sees a shotgun." Colyer said.As Mr. Hankins closed the door,the shotgun fired. The blast wentthrough the door and struck Hankins’hand, which was still holding thedoorknob. Pellets from the firearm,which appeared to be a single shot12-gauge shotgun, struck Hankins’inddx finger and almost severed Insmiddle linger. One pellet hit the vieurn's wife above one eye. but she didnot sustain serious injuries.Colver said the two don’t knowwho would target them lor an attackThey said lliev had no problems w iththeir neighbors and weren't involvedin anv disputes w ith anyone else.“The victim didn’t know the guynever seen him before in Ins file."Colyer said. "They'd never had anyproblems bctorc."While robbery is a possible motive.Colver added, u is unclear whetherlhe assailant attempted to force Insway into the home."The shotgun blast jammed thedoor so it wouldn’t open," Colyersaid. "We don’t know il he tried toget in the house or not."By BRUCE ALSOBROOKSulphur Springs Crime Stoppersis offering a lot of money to .ftiyonewho can help police in their inves-tigations into two recent shootingincidents in the city.Crime Stoppers is offering up to$1,000 for any information on theMitchell Street shooting Tuesdaynight, when a 61-year-old SulphurSprings man sustained severe handinjuries.The organization’s board ofdirectors has also approved a guar-anteed $1,000 reward for informa-tion leading'to the arrest and indictment of the person or people-responsible for the Dec. 17 shoot-ing at a private parly on CarterStreet.Two men were hospitalized inthat incident.Police said they have receivedlittle information from witnesses atthe scene, however.Any cue with information aboutthese eiimes can call Crime Stop-pers ai 885-2020.Callers do not have to give theirnames, only their information.Informants’ identities are kept con-fidential in all cases, and they can-not be forced to testify in court.A cold, wet, necessary jobStaff Photo By Faith HuffmanA city employee is drenched as he works in a holeon College Street Wednesday morning in freezingtemperatures, trying to stem the tide of water froma broken water line. A portion of the street span-ning about three blocks was flooded by the breakand from two water hydrants that were opened torelease some of the pressure on the line. Repairswere slowed as workers had difficulty locating andgetting to the cut-off valve for the water main.KCS offersAmtrak dealon rail linePower firms work through region’s ice stormFrom Stall’ ReportsEEC Electric and TXU Electric andGas Co. were finally able to breathe asigh of relief Thursday morning aftergetting power restored to most resi-dences in Hopkins County.“We're in pretty good shape rightnow.” said TXU Operations MangerDanny Hodges Thursday morning.“We had maybe a dozen trouble tick-ets left to fill when I came in at fiveo'clock this morning. We’ve filled allof the orders in our system comput-ers.However, work remains.“That doesn’t mean that everyonehas power on. because people whohad services pulled off Iheir house arehaving to have electricians repair thatbefore we can get the power on."Hodges said"When the electricians gel done,they need to call us. and we'll come-back."We encourage anyone who hasproblems at Iheir residence to call usback at the 800 number and let usknow."We have processed literally thou-sands of cases in ihe Iasi few days,and we may have missed some.”By BRUCEALSOBROOKKansas City Southern Railways hasoffered to allow Amtrak to run itsnew passenger train linking Dallasand New York -in exchange forimprovements on the rail line.In a special edition of “KCSNew s,” President and Chiel Execu-tive Officer Michael R I (averty indi"taied KCS is (mixed to host the train,which would run through SulphurSprings on the fine.“We have invited Amtrak to oper-ate a daily passenger train in eachdirection between Meridian | Miss. |and Dallas, in exchange for capacityimprovements including centralizedtraffic control on the fine east olShreveport." Haverly wrote in tile-newsletter, summarizing the rail com-pany’s accomplishments for the year.Amtrak officials have remainedhush-hush on the state of the passen-ger train, dubbed the Crescent Star,but recent stalls in negotiations withUnion Pacific Corp. to run the trainon its rails have reportedly turned thepassenger carrier’s attention to KCSWhile the information is hardly afinal indicator of w hat Amtrak’s finaldecision w ill be. it is another clue m atransportation mystery that has playedout over the past 10 months.The new r-arl fine, a branch olAmtrak's Crescent train, is part ol thetransportation provider's growthstrategy in response to a congression-al requirement for the governmentsubsidized service to become sell sutlicienlThe new service will branch off inMeridian from the Crescent fine,which runs between New York andNew Orleans. From Meridian. thetrain will follow KCS tracks intoShreveport, and from there lake thelinal route to Dallas. Il will either slayon the KCS fine through Jefferson.Daingerfield, Pittsburg. Winnsboro.Sulphur Springs and Greenvillebefore heading to the Mctroplex. orhead south on the Union Pacific-tracks through Marshall. Longviewand Mincola into Dallas.Officials from Sulphur Springs,Hopkins County and all cities andcounties along the KCS route havebeen lobbying for Ihe northern pathsince l-’ebiuarv. not long after plansfor the new line were announced.After the dogged efforts by the "KCScoalition." the decision on a mule wasdelayed. In July, the president ofAmtrak's division overseeing theroute said a decision should comew ithin a mallei ol weeks. In August.Amtrak ollicials said an Aug. 25report by I moil Pacific would helpthem make a final decision. Sincethen, word on any progress had beenmum.Last week, however. MeridianMayor John Robert Smith, a meinbeiol Amtrak’s board of dnectors. saidnegotiations w ith Union Pacific hadhogged down, and Amtrak officialsare now Incusing on a deal withKansas City Southern RailwaysSeveral instruments donated to Sulphur Springs Junior Symphony LeagueFrom Staff ReportsLocal cello students gained morefrom their association with profes-sional cellist and instructor AlexMatros than private lessons earlier thismonth.They gained access to the nineinstruments donated to SulphurSprings Junior Symphony League byone of Matros’ other students. PraterMonning, for use by students in theSulphur Springs Independent SchoolDistrict’s Strings program who do notown their own instruments."These are nice instruments, andAlliance plans new drive-infacility on South BroadwayBy FAITH HUFFMANIf you're shopping or doing busi-ness on the south side of town andrun out of cash this summer, you willno longer have to drive all the wayacross town to visit the bank. AllianceBank is building a new drive-in facil-ity on South BroadwaV Street thatwill accommodate up to 10 lanes ofbank traffic and two lanes Jo the auto-mated teller machines (ATMs),according to Alliance Bank PresidentTom Sellers.Bank officials are having the drive-in bank constructed just south of PaulBennett's dentist office in the 1400block of South Broadway Street toalleviate some of the traffic throughthe branch office just north of Inter-state 30.“It's a large facility that will be ableto handle several cars and have roomfor some growth later." Sellers said."The other (branch) site is busy, andthis will relieve some of the conges-tion and provide for additionalgrow-th."Audley Moore Construction Co. isscheduled to break ground in Febru-ary or March, weather permitting.Engineers and technicians will do soiltesting and a bid process will have tobe held before construction can begin,hence the deferred start date“It’s going to be a nice facility withwe re lucky to have them." said AnneStraw n. president of the Junior Sym-phony League."When Mr. Monning presentedthem to us. Dr Matros gave a brieldemonstration of the quality andsound of one of the cellos, w hich hesaid if sold as is’ would he worthWinter iwelcomeVisitors to Lin-coln Drive Tues-day morningwere greeted bythis apparentlyhappy snowman,thanks to thesnow that fell inSulphur SpringsJan. 1. The cityrecorded 2 inch-es of melted pre-cipitation. orabout 4 inches ofsnow New Year’sDay.approximately $3,000.’’Matros. who was contracted by theJunior Symphony League this fall toprovide private- lessons lor the celloand bass students in the Strings pro-gram. also gives private lessons to pri-vate citizens in Ihe Dallas area.Among his students is Monning. aDallas attorney so swept into the passion for playing exemplified by hisinstructor that he purchased ninestringed instruments from a school inBoston. Mass., that was closing andhaving to sell their instrumentsUpon hearing ol Sulphur Splines’Strings program and the Junior Sunphony League's private lessons pro-gram from Malms. Monning knew lie-had lound a home lor his purchasesMonning had the instruments — sixcellos, (wo violins and a violarepaned and readied loi use bctorcpresenting them to the Symphonyl.eag.if loi use by Stimgs students.Compared to ice,snow wasn’t so badBv BRUCE AI .SOB ROOK--!------The winter stuff that almost nevercomes to Northeast Texas fell inabundance over the holiday weekendas Hopkins County welcomed 2001in a blanket of pristine snowsUnlike the two ice storms thatpounded on East Texas in previousweeks, the approximately four inch-es of snow that covered the area w asa comparative love tap. Numerousminor accidents were reported in theregion, but mostly just vehicles slid-ing off of roads, and the weather hadlittle effect on utility systems.gency management goes, w e didn’thave any pioblems." said SulphurSprings Emergency ManagementCoordinator Rex MorganIt was slow going over the w eek-end at the Hopkins County Sheriff’sOffice as well, although deputieswere called on to assist motorists inabout a dozen slide-offs and minorfender-benJersIt was the third time since Dec. 12that Hopkins County and the rest ofthe region faced precipitation from awinter storm system.The first hit the night of Dec. 12with just enough ice and precipita-cru.th side of town as well as the drive-in areas where the tellers will \ ^Of It*”*south section of the county, and to work." Sellers said J •J minor accidents, but as far as cmer- local residents.»1